The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce

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Editorial Introduction by John Deely

Past Masters Introduction Chronological Listing of Texts Groups of the database Key to Symbols Volume 1 Volume 3 Volume 5 Volume 7 Contents Contents Contents Contents Text Text Text Text Footnotes Footnotes Footnotes Footnotes Volume 2 Volume 4 Volume 6 Volume 8 Contents Contents Contents Contents Text Text Text Text Footnotes Footnotes Footnotes Footnotes All text only All footnotes only All text authored by Peirce

Peirce: CP Editorial Introduction to Electronic Edition Membra Ficte Disjecta

(A Disordered Array of Severed Limbs)

Editorial Introduction

by John Deely

to the electronic edition of

The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce

reproducing Vols. I-VI ed. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931-1935), Vols. VII-VIII ed. Arthur W. Burks (same publisher, 1958)

1 June 1994

Peirce: CP Editorial Introduction to Electronic Edition Charles S. Peirce (the "S" stands for "Sanders" by Baptism and later for "Santiago" as Charles' way of honoring William James) has so far best been known in academia at large as some kind of a background figure to the rise of Pragmatism, as mentor to that movement's truly well-known protagonists, William James and John Dewey. That misleading identification is in the process of changing, and the literature supporting the understanding of Peirce in the established framework of modern philosophy, particularly with its opposition of "realism" to "idealism" such as the works of Buchler, Goudge, Manley Thompson already belong to the genre of depass interpretation.

Peirce: CP Editorial Introduction to Electronic Edition It is not merely a question of the curiously underassessed fact (excepting Apel's pioneering 1970 study, Der Denkweg von Charles S. Peirce: Eine Einfhrung in den amerikanischen Pragmatismus [Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag], presciently retitled From Pragmatism to Pragmaticism for its 1981 English translation by J. M. Krois [Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press]) that, despite the willingness on all sides to attribute the original coining of the term "pragmatism" as a philosophical name to him, Peirce eschewed the classical pragmatist development to the point of giving to his own position a new name, "Pragmaticism". It is a question at bottom of the principal optic through which Peirce early and ever-after came to view the problems of philosophy, the optic of "semiotic", as he called it after Locke, or the doctrina signorum, as both Locke and Peirce called it, both unaware of the earlier Latin Iberian development of this optic through the successive work of Domingo de Soto (with his Summulae or Introductory Logic of 1529), Pedro da Fonseca (1564) and the Conimbricenses (1607) he started, Francisco Araujo (1617), and the culminating synthesis of John Poinsot's Tractatus de Signis (Treatise on Signs) of 1632 (also a full-text data-base in this Past Masters series).

Peirce: CP Editorial Introduction to Electronic Edition I first came to take Peirce seriously as a result of Thomas A. Sebeok's 1978 NEH Summer Seminar on semiotics as a new foundation for the sciences. In that group of seminarians there were three expert Peirceans, Jarrett E. Brock, H. William Davenport, and George A. Benedict. It soon became clear that anyone studying Peirce today on the basis of the Harvard Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (henceforward CP) was essentially in the position of an animal

wading into a pool of piranha fish. A whole generation of young Peirce scholars had come of age under the tutelage or indirect influence of Max Fisch, the most knowledgeable of all the senior Peirce scholars, who had almost alone come to grasp the semiotic trajectory animating the entire Peircean corpus. First through Kenneth Ketner's Institute for the Study of Pragmaticism at Texas Tech University, and later through the Peirce Edition Project at IUPUI, Fisch had shown the new generation not only the importance of the unpublished Peirce manuscripts, but, equally importantly, how to read them with semiotic eyes. Oddly enough, as an index of how much remains to be done in achieving a balanced and integral presentation of the Peircean corpus, the recent An Introduction to C. S. Peirce by Robert Corrington (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1993) stands out as the first introduction to give semiotic a co-ordinate billing with such traditional aspects of Peircean thought as his metaphysics (yet even in this ground-breaking over-all introduction, arguably the best so far, Corrington told me that "piety toward the elders" inhibited him in annotating his bibliography).

Peirce: CP Editorial Introduction to Electronic Edition The story of the Harvard edition titled CP, which we here re-present in electronic form, is a story fairly well known, and a sad one. Hartshorne and Weiss, along with Burks later, deserve our thanks for getting the volumes out, but we must at the same time regret the manner of their editing, which was to construct a topical scheme of their own devising under which to sort and dissect the papers left whole to Harvard through the good intentions of Josiah Royce. How Harvard abused that trust! The story, at least, is now out with the bursting upon the scene of the newly-worked (after more than thirty years of repression) biographical dissertation of Joseph Brent in the form of the book, Charles Sanders Peirce. A Life (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993). This publication is a tribute in equal parts to the writing skill and historical tenacity of its author, to the editorial genius (to say nothing of the detective skills) of Thomas A. Sebeok, and to the publishing genius of John Gallman, the Director of the Indiana University Press.

Peirce: CP Editorial Introduction to Electronic Edition But why re-publish the CP now, just when the chronological edition of the Writings (henceforward W) may be getting up steam? There are several answers to this question. The first reason is that the CP is not in competition with W. The chronological edition, when completed, will become the irreplaceable standard and, if brought to completion at its current level of scholarly excellence, will remain practically unsurpassable as a hardcopy critical source. But W is, simply put, taking too long, partly in the nature of the task which, after all, however much more quickly it might have been shepherded, cannot be rushed: it needs to be done rightly, and critical editing takes time. Still, those of us alive today and interested in Peirce would like to have access to as much of his work as possible as soon as possible. At present, as far as published writings go, that still means the CP.

Peirce: CP Editorial Introduction to Electronic Edition A second reason is that CP contains some material which, at least according to current plans, will not be included in W. That means that, for the foreseeable future, the CP will remain an independent, and at least minor, source for Peircean scholarship.

Peirce: CP Editorial Introduction to Electronic Edition The third reason, however, is the main reason for this edition. By bringing out the CP in electronic form, we not only keep available the so-far primary published source of Peirce material, but we present it in a form that enables the user in principle to overcome the primary defect of the original publication, namely, its artificial dismemberment of the Peircean corpus. Using the invaluable tool of the Burks bibliography from the last of the eight CP volumes, which gave scholars the necessary key to reconstruct the order of the Peirce manuscripts before the CP editors dissected them and shuffled the pieces (it is amazing, between the Burks bibliography and the Robin catalogue, not to mention many lesser essays, how much Peirce scholarship has been devoted to undoing that dismemberment), we have created hypertext links which will enable the users of the electronic edition to reconstruct and print out for themselves Peirce's manuscripts in something like their original integrity.

Peirce: CP Editorial Introduction to Electronic Edition An illustration of this advantage of the electronic CP may be given using Peirce's c.1895 essay "That Categorical and Hypothetical Propositions Are One in Essence". According to Burks (p. 286), paragraphs CP 2.332-339, 2.278-28, 1.564-567 (c.1899), and 2.340 "are from it in this order". Using the electronic CP, a reader can reconstruct this whole and print it out as such for scholarly or classroom use. Thus the "bodily parts" of the Peircean corpus, so far as they are included in the CP, may be easily rearrayed in proper order so as to appear in something closer to the light under which Peirce left them.

Peirce: CP Editorial Introduction to Electronic Edition This illustration brings out the fourth reason for this electronic edition, namely, to stimulate self-appointed scholarly caretakers of the manuscript materials to hasten the making available of the whole of the Peirce documents in electronic form even while the critical published edition (for which there is no substitute) goes forward at its own pace. Joseph Ransdell has been tirelessly promoting the desirability of an on-line forum through the proposal of the Peirce electronic consortium and through the two Peirce bulletin boards in which he is closely involved (contact Professor Ransdell at for full details of the possibilities). By presenting this edition to the scholarly world, we have done the best that was possible at this actual historical moment in bringing Peirce as so far published "on line".

Peirce: Collected Papers - PAST MASTERS Introduction Past Masters Introduction

Below find the text of The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. All footnotes have been placed at the ends of their respective volumes. We have numbered the footnotes of volumes 1-6 relative to the page (instead of using the symbols of volumes 1-6). Footnotes authored by Peirce in volumes 1-6 are identified by the letter "P" after the carat symbol () and before the numeral. Thus footnote P1 is a footnote authored by Peirce (i.e. the numbered footnotes of the printed editions (CP 1-6). In volumes 7 and 8 we have followed Burks scheme.

Peirce: Collected Papers - PAST MASTERS Introduction A number of substitutions were made for symbols. Please see the "Key to Symbols" for a complete list.

Peirce: Collected Papers - PAST MASTERS Introduction A number of groups have been created to facilitate searches. Please see the "Groups of the database" for more information.

Peirce: Collected Papers - PAST MASTERS Introduction A link token is found on every reference line which leads to the "Table of Cross-References." The "Table of Cross-References" correlates the bibliography with every paragraph of text of the CP. A link appears next to every bibliographic entry of this table, which leads to the complete bibliographic record. Thus to see the complete bibliographic record which identifies the source of any particular paragraph:

a) Go to the View menu, and execute the Hidden menu item (either by moving to the item with your Arrow keys or mouse then pressing Return/Enter or by clicking on the item with your mouse). Successful execution will result in a check mark to the left of the Hidden menu item. All reference lines in the text will be unhidden. The reference lines are located at the beginning of the paragraph, and appear purplish-red on color screens.

b) Note your current paragraph number (e.g. CP 3.183); click with your mouse on top of the link to the right of "Cross-Ref:". You will be moved to a table of Cross-references for the volume in question.

c) Move to the paragraph range in the table (using your arrow keys or mouse) in which your current paragraph falls, then click on the range with your mouse. You will be moved to the record which identifies the bibliographic source of the paragraph in question.

Peirce: Collected Papers Groups Groups of the Peirce database

A number of groups have been created to make searching the database easier. First, groups have been created from the divisions of Hartshorne, Weiss, and Burks. [Group: CP1], [Group: CP2], ... [Group: CP8] etc. identify volumes 1 through 8. Thus the search

[Group: CP3] abnumeral

would find all paragraphs in volume 3 containing the word abnumeral.

Peirce: Collected Papers Groups A group exists for every book, chapter and section division as well. Thus the search

[Group: cp4.i.ii] good

would find all paragraphs from Volume 4, Book I, Lecture II containing the word "good."

Peirce: Collected Papers Groups Secondly, every paragraph of the Collected Papers has been placed in a group which identifies the year in which the paragraph was authored. Thus the [Group: Peirce.1888] group contains all paragraphs identified in the bibliography as having been written in 1888. The search

[Group: Peirce.1888]

would find all paragraphs written by Peirce in 1888, which are in the CP. The search

[Group: Peirce.1888] abnumeral

would find all paragraphs written by Peirce in 1888 (in the CP) which contain the word "abnumeral" (if any).

Peirce: Collected Papers Groups This chronological grouping also exists at the 5-year and 10-year level. The [Group: Peirce5.1875] and [Group: Peirce10.1880] groups contain every paragraph authored by Peirce (in the CP, identified in the bibliography) in the years 1871-1875, and 1871-1880 respectively. Thus the search

[Group: Peirce10.1890] [Group: Peirce5.1895] abnumeral

would find every paragraph containing abnumeral authored by Peirce between the years 1881-1895 (in the CP).

Peirce: Collected Papers Groups A group has been created from the text only and footnotes only of each volume. These groups are accessible from the opening screen of the database.

Thus [Group: cp1.text] contains all paragraphs of the text of volume 1, and [Group: cp3.footnotes] contains all footnotes of volume 3. A [Group: cp.text] group excludes all footnotes, introductory and explanatory material, as well as table of contents entries. (Thus the [Group: cp.text] group = [Group: cp1.text] or [Group: cp2.text] ... [Group: cp8.text].) A [Group: cp.footnotes] group contains the footnotes from all 8 volumes. Finally, a [Group: peirce] group contains all and only material authored by Peirce, from both footnotes and text.

Peirce: CP Key to Electronic Symbols: Introduction Key to Symbols: Introduction

Many symbols which do not appear in the extended ANSI or ASCII character sets (or symbol font sets) appear in the text of the Collected Papers. In the Windows and Macintosh version of this database, we are creating a Peirce font set that will accurately display onscreen all symbols found in the Collected Papers. This new Peirce font will appear in an updated version of the database. In the meantime, below find all substitutions made, with (if necessary) an image which displays the symbol as it appears in the print edition.

Peirce: CP Key to Electronic Symbols: Key to Symbols

All subscripts are enclosed between brackets. Thus A[1] is A followed by the subscript 1. Occasionally a bracket in the text is double-bracketed in the electronic edition, to avoid ambiguity. Thus A[[1]] would indicate that an unsubscripted 1 enclosed by brackets appears in the printed edition.

Occasionally parentheses have been introduced to disambiguate expressions made ambiguous by substituting notation. Parentheses were particularly necessary to disambiguate numerators and denominators in division from surrounding expressions.

All Greek has been transliterated and is enclosed between braces {}. This transliterated Greek will be replaced with true Greek in an updated version of this database. Standard rules for transliteration were followed with the following exceptions:

{} = lowercase eta

{} = uppercase eta

{} = lowercase omega

{} = uppercase omega

The $ sign is used to represent "some". If the the curved line appears over an expression, the $ sign precedes the parenthesized expression.

= $A

= $A

A vertical bar above a symbol or expression has been replaced with a tilde preceding the expression. Thus:

= A ~-< B = ~A

A vertical bar underneath a symbol is represented by following the symbol with _. If the vertical bar is underneath more than one symbol, the _ sign is placed after the parenthetical expression:

= (x x)_ A dot over a symbol is represented by preceding the

= (x x)_

A dot over a symbol is represented by preceding the symbol with a dot. Thus:

= =

=

=

=

The remainder of the symbol-equivalents are self-explanatory:

= =, = +, = `+ = -< = A ~-< B =

A ~= B

= ~A = \/ = | = /0\ = -(- = a e

Peirce: CP Texts in Chronological Order Texts in Chronological Order

1866-1870 1871-1880 1881-1890 1891-1900 1901-1910 1911-1913 1866 1871-1875 1881-1885 1891-1895 1901-1905 1911 1867 1871 1881 1891 1901 1913 1868 1882 1892 1902 1869 1873 1883 1893 1903 1870 1884 1894 1904 1875 1885 1895 1905 Undated 1876-1880 1886-1890 1896-1900 1906-1910 1876 1896 1906 1877 1887 1897 1907 1878 1898 1908 1879 1889 1899 1909 1880 1890 1900 1910

Note: No paragraphs from the CP were drawn from 1872, 1874, 1886, 1888, and 1912 (as listed in the "Table of Cross-References").

Peirce: CP 1 Title-Page COLLECTED PAPERS OF CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE

EDITED BY

CHARLES HARTSHORNE

AND

PAUL WEISS

VOLUME I

PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY

CAMBRIDGE

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS

1931

Peirce: CP 1 Copyright Page COPYRIGHT, 1931

BY THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF

HARVARD COLLEGE

PRINTED IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

THE MURRAY PRINTING COMPANY

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

Peirce: CP 1 Introduction p iii INTRODUCTION

Charles Sanders Peirce plays a unique rle in the history of American philosophy. During his own lifetime he published no book on philosophy, and except for a relatively short period he held no university chair from which to impress his influence upon students; yet he has come to be recognized as the founder of the one distinctive movement which this country has produced.

Peirce: CP 1 Introduction p iii Pragmatism, as it developed, followed the pattern of William James' thought and that of John Dewey rather than the conceptions of Peirce; but it was Peirce, as James and Dewey magnanimously insisted, who defined the principle of the movement and gave it the first impetus. Never indeed a leader of movements, Peirce was an originator of ideas. He clearly formulated in his writings many conceptions which are only today beginning to find recognition, and there are implications in his thought which have not yet been fully developed.

Peirce: CP 1 Introduction p iii Articles on pragmatism represent only one phase of his work. Some of his best thought was devoted to logical problems: to the logic of classes and relations, the theory of signs, scientific method, to probability and induction, and to the logical analysis of mathematics. In the development of exact or mathematical logic his papers represent the most important and considerable contributions in the period between Boole's Laws of Thought and Schrder's Vorlesungen. His writings on logic touch almost every point of theoretical interest in the subject.

Peirce: CP 1 Introduction p iii His published papers, about seventy-five in number, include the series of articles on pragmatism, the logical papers, and important discussions of metaphysical problems. There are about twice as many book reviews. From these published works one may gather some suggestion of the versatility of his interests

and the wide range of his studies, which included subjects as remote and unexpected as geodesy and astronomy, telepathy, criminology, and optics. But perhaps because carefully edited for publication, these papers and reviews fail to reveal as they might another side of Peirce -- his humor, freshness, pithiness of phrase, his exuberance of idea, erratic self-consciousness and self-confidence, his endless projection of vast systematic constructions, the gleams of genius described by James in his famous phrase as "flashes of brilliant light relieved against Cimmerian darkness." Only in the less formal writings does Peirce emerge as his friends at Harvard knew him in the great period of philosophy there at the turn of the century.

Peirce: CP 1 Introduction p iv After Peirce's death in 1914, his unpublished manuscripts came into the care of the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University. They number several hundreds, not including fragments, the fruit of a long life devoted almost exclusively to philosophy and to science in a great variety of forms. These manuscripts represent all stages of incompleteness. Frequently there is no date or title, and many leaves are out of place or altogether missing. Some of them were rewritten as many as a dozen times: it is often evident that Peirce himself was not able to select the final form. Some are clearly identifiable as earlier drafts of his published papers; others one may assume to have been such drafts, although they differ from the published papers so much as to make this a matter of doubt. Often these unpublished studies contain passages, or longer portions, which impress those who have examined them as being of greater worth or clarity than those in the published articles. There are, likewise, a number of studies, often completed and of considerable length, and yet plainly unrelated to any which were printed. Sometimes they can be identified, through contemporary correspondence, as definite projects for publication which for one or another reason, never came to fruition. Often, however, there is no indication of such definite intent; he seems to have written merely from the impulse to formulate what was in his mind. Nevertheless, Peirce's studies of this kind are usually fairly continuous and systematic. If their merely private or preliminary nature is at all betrayed, this is because in them Peirce allows himself to follow out the ramifications of his topic, so that digressions appear which are inadmissible in print, but which show vividly the interconnectedness of his thought and the unsystematic character of his writings.

Peirce: CP 1 Introduction p v Peirce possessed the system-making mind. That the merely external exigencies of his life and the indifference of publishers prevented any full-length presentation of his philosophy is a tragedy. And it is a tragedy which cannot now be set right. His system cannot be completely reconstructed; even the attempt would mean taking indefensible liberties with the manuscripts. The most that can be done is to select, with such judgment as one can command, the most important of these unpublished papers and to compare them with his published writings on the same topic. Such selection is always difficult. Illuminating passages of great interest must be passed by because inextricably connected with other material the

inclusion of which is not justified. On the other hand, because the doctrines they present are too important to be omitted, papers and fragments must often be included although one is sure that the author would not have printed them in their present condition. Often there are alternative drafts of the same study, one distinctly superior in some portion or respect; the other, in some other portion or respect. In such cases a choice is necessary, although any choice is a matter of regret.

Peirce: CP 1 Introduction p v In general, when Peirce's thought is at its best, he writes least well. For relatively superficial and transient topics he commanded a facile style, as in the many engaging contributions to The Nation. And in his more serious published work, he never allowed anything to leave his hand until it had attained a certain clarity and continuity. But when he is most in earnest (the manuscripts make this evident), the systematic and detailed character of his thought impedes his pen: he is likely to fall into some harsh jargon of his own, adopted in the interests of precision. The neatly turned phrase or brief and striking statement must often be rejected, in favor of one more technically accurate, or more complicated in the interest of adequacy. It is only just, however, to recognize that there are infelicities of style which occur in some of the papers included in these volumes which Peirce himself would never have allowed to remain in the final published form.

Peirce: CP 1 Introduction p v The more important of these manuscripts of Peirce, as well as his published papers, have now been brought together in some ten volumes which will appear in rapid succession. The first volume contains in outline his system, so far as it can be presented, his writings on scientific method and the classification of the sciences, his doctrine of the categories, and his work on ethics. The next volume deals with the theory of signs and meaning, traditional logic, induction, the science of discovery and probability; and the third volume reprints his published work on modern logic. The fourth includes his unpublished original contributions to the foundations of mathematics, logic and graphs. The fifth volume contains his papers on pragmatism. The sixth is concerned with metaphysics. It is expected that the remaining volumes will contain his writings on physics and psychology, as well as his reviews, letters and biography.

Peirce: CP 1 Introduction p vi Nearly all the members of the Department during the last fifteen years, as well as many others who were interested in Peirce, have devoted much time to the often very intractable material of the manuscripts. But the final and laborious work of selecting, arranging and preparing the papers for the press has been done by Dr. Charles Hartshorne, formerly Instructor in Philosophy at Harvard and by Dr. Paul Weiss, who is at present an Instructor in Philosophy at this university. The Department desires to express its gratitude to the many friends who have contributed generously towards the expense of printing the volumes.

* * *

Peirce: CP 1 Introduction p vi Wherever possible Peirce's punctuation and spelling have been retained. Titles supplied by the editors for papers previously published are marked with an E, while Peirce's titles for unpublished papers are marked with a P. Peirce's titles for previously published papers and the editors' titles for unpublished papers are not marked. Remarks and additions by the editors are inclosed in light-face square brackets. The editors' footnotes are indicated by various typographical signs, while Peirce's are indicated by numbers. Paragraphs are numbered consecutively throughout each volume. At the top of each page the numbers signify the volume and the first paragraph of that page. All references in the indices are to the numbers of the paragraphs.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

AUGUST, 1931.

Peirce: CP 1.1 Cross-Ref: PREFACE 1

1. To erect a philosophical edifice that shall outlast the vicissitudes of time, my care must be, not so much to set each brick with nicest accuracy, as to lay the foundations deep and massive. Aristotle builded upon a few deliberately chosen concepts -- such as matter and form, act and power -- very broad, and in their outlines vague and rough, but solid, unshakable, and not easily undermined; and thence it has come to pass that Aristotelianism is babbled in every nursery, that "English Common Sense," for example, is thoroughly peripatetic, and that ordinary men live so completely within the house of the Stagyrite that whatever they see out of the windows appears to them incomprehensible and metaphysical. Long it has been only too manifest that, fondly habituated though we be to it, the old structure will not do for modern needs; and accordingly, under Descartes, Hobbes, Kant, and others, repairs, alterations, and partial demolitions have been carried on for the last three centuries. One system, also, stands upon its own ground; I mean the new Schelling-Hegel mansion, lately run up in the German taste, but with such oversights in its construction that, although brand new, it is already pronounced uninhabitable. The undertaking which this volume inaugurates is to make a philosophy like that of Aristotle, that is to say, to outline a theory so comprehensive that, for a long time to come, the entire work of human reason, in philosophy of every school and kind, in mathematics, in psychology, in physical science, in history, in sociology, and in whatever other department there

may be, shall appear as the filling up of its details. The first step toward this is to find simple concepts applicable to every subject.2

Peirce: CP 1.2 Cross-Ref: 2. But before all else, let me make the acquaintance of my reader, and express my sincere esteem for him and the deep pleasure it is to me to address one so wise and so patient. I know his character pretty well, for both the subject and the style of this book ensure his being one out of millions. He will comprehend that it has not been written for the purpose of confirming him in his preconceived opinions, and he would not take the trouble to read it if it had. He is prepared to meet with propositions that he is inclined at first to dissent from; and he looks to being convinced that some of them are true, after all. He will reflect, too, that the thinking and writing of this book has taken, I won't say how long, quite certainly more than a quarter of an hour, and consequently fundamental objections of so obvious a nature that they must strike everyone instantaneously will have occurred to the author, although the replies to them may not be of that kind whose full force can be instantly apprehended.

Peirce: CP 1.3 Cross-Ref: 3. The reader has a right to know how the author's opinions were formed. Not, of course, that he is expected to accept any conclusions which are not borne out by argument. But in discussions of extreme difficulty, like these, when good judgment is a factor, and pure ratiocination is not everything, it is prudent to take every element into consideration. From the moment when I could think at all, until now, about forty years, I have been diligently and incessantly occupied with the study of methods [of] inquiry, both those which have been and are pursued and those which ought to be pursued. For ten years before this study began, I had been in training in the chemical laboratory. I was thoroughly grounded not only in all that was then known of physics and chemistry, but also in the way in which those who were successfully advancing knowledge proceeded. I have paid the most attention to the methods of the most exact sciences, have intimately communed with some of the greatest minds of our times in physical science, and have myself made positive contributions -- none of them of any very great importance, perhaps -- in mathematics, gravitation, optics, chemistry, astronomy, etc. I am saturated, through and through, with the spirit of the physical sciences. I have been a great student of logic, having read everything of any importance on the subject, devoting a great deal of time to medieval thought, without neglecting the works of the Greeks, the English, the Germans, the French, etc., and have produced systems of my own both in deductive and in inductive logic. In metaphysics, my training has been less systematic; yet I have read and deeply pondered upon all the main systems, never being satisfied until I was able to think about them as their own advocates thought.

Peirce: CP 1.4 Cross-Ref: 4. The first strictly philosophical books that I read were of the classical German schools; and I became so deeply imbued with many of their ways of thinking that I have never been able to disabuse myself of them. Yet my attitude was always that of a dweller in a laboratory, eager only to learn what I did not yet

know, and not that of philosophers bred in theological seminaries, whose ruling impulse is to teach what they hold to be infallibly true. I devoted two hours a day to the study of Kant's Critic of the Pure Reason for more than three years, until I almost knew the whole book by heart, and had critically examined every section of it. For about two years, I had long and almost daily discussions with Chauncey Wright, one of the most acute of the followers of J. S. Mill.

Peirce: CP 1.5 Cross-Ref: 5. The effect of these studies was that I came to hold the classical German philosophy to be, upon its argumentative side, of little weight; although I esteem it, perhaps am too partial to it, as a rich mine of philosophical suggestions. The English philosophy, meagre and crude, as it is, in its conceptions, proceeds by surer methods and more accurate logic. The doctrine of the association of ideas is, to my thinking, the finest piece of philosophical work of the prescientific ages. Yet I can but pronounce English sensationalism to be entirely destitute of any solid bottom. From the evolutionary philosophers, I have learned little; although I admit that, however hurriedly their theories have been knocked together, and however antiquated and ignorant Spencer's First Principles and general doctrines, yet they are under the guidance of a great and true idea, and are developing it by methods that are in their main features sound and scientific.

Peirce: CP 1.6 Cross-Ref: 6. The works of Duns Scotus have strongly influenced me. If his logic and metaphysics, not slavishly worshipped, but torn away from its medievalism, be adapted to modern culture, under continual wholesome reminders of nominalistic criticisms, I am convinced that it will go far toward supplying the philosophy which is best to harmonize with physical science. But other conceptions have to be drawn from the history of science and from mathematics.

Peirce: CP 1.7 Cross-Ref: 7. Thus, in brief, my philosophy may be described as the attempt of a physicist to make such conjecture as to the constitution of the universe as the methods of science may permit, with the aid of all that has been done by previous philosophers. I shall support my propositions by such arguments as I can. Demonstrative proof is not to be thought of. The demonstrations of the metaphysicians are all moonshine. The best that can be done is to supply a hypothesis, not devoid of all likelihood, in the general line of growth of scientific ideas, and capable of being verified or refuted by future observers.

Peirce: CP 1.8 Cross-Ref: 8. Religious infallibilism, caught in the current of the times, shows symptoms of declaring itself to be only practically speaking infallible; and when it has thus once confessed itself subject to gradations, there will remain over no relic of the good old tenth-century infallibilism, except that of the infallible scientists, under which head I include, not merely the kind of characters that manufacture scientific catechisms and homilies, churches and creeds, and who are indeed "born missionaries," but all those respectable and cultivated persons who, having acquired their notions of science from reading, and not from research, have the

idea that "science" means knowledge, while the truth is, it is a misnomer applied to the pursuit of those who are devoured by a desire to find things out....

Peirce: CP 1.9 Cross-Ref: 9. Though infallibility in scientific matters seems to me irresistibly comical, I should be in a sad way if I could not retain a high respect for those who lay claim to it, for they comprise the greater part of the people who have any conversation at all. When I say they lay claim to it, I mean they assume the functions of it quite naturally and unconsciously. The full meaning of the adage Humanum est errare, they have never waked up to. In those sciences of measurement which are the least subject to error -- metrology, geodesy, and metrical astronomy -- no man of self-respect ever now states his result, without affixing to it its probable error; and if this practice is not followed in other sciences it is because in those the probable errors are too vast to be estimated.

Peirce: CP 1.10 Cross-Ref: 10. I am a man of whom critics have never found anything good to say. When they could see no opportunity to injure me, they have held their peace. The little laudation I have had has come from such sources, that the only satisfaction I have derived from it, has been from such slices of bread and butter as it might waft my way. Only once, as far as I remember, in all my lifetime have I experienced the pleasure of praise -- not for what it might bring but in itself. That pleasure was beatific; and the praise that conferred it was meant for blame. It was that a critic said of me that I did not seem to be absolutely sure of my own conclusions. Never, if I can help it, shall that critic's eye ever rest on what I am now writing; for I owe a great pleasure to him; and, such was his evident animus, that should he find that out, I fear the fires of hell would be fed with new fuel in his breast.

Peirce: CP 1.11 Cross-Ref: 11. My book will have no instruction to impart to anybody. Like a mathematical treatise, it will suggest certain ideas and certain reasons for holding them true; but then, if you accept them, it must be because you like my reasons, and the responsibility lies with you. Man is essentially a social animal: but to be social is one thing, to be gregarious is another: I decline to serve as bellwether. My book is meant for people who want to find out; and people who want philosophy ladled out to them can go elsewhere. There are philosophical soup shops at every corner, thank God!

Peirce: CP 1.12 Cross-Ref: 12. The development of my ideas has been the industry of thirty years. I did not know as I ever should get to publish them, their ripening seemed so slow. But the harvest time has come, at last, and to me that harvest seems a wild one, but of course it is not I who have to pass judgment. It is not quite you, either, individual reader; it is experience and history.

Peirce: CP 1.13 Cross-Ref: 13. For years in the course of this ripening process, I used for myself to

collect my ideas under the designation fallibilism; and indeed the first step toward finding out is to acknowledge you do not satisfactorily know already; so that no blight can so surely arrest all intellectual growth as the blight of cocksureness; and ninety-nine out of every hundred good heads are reduced to impotence by that malady -- of whose inroads they are most strangely unaware!

Peirce: CP 1.14 Cross-Ref: 14. Indeed, out of a contrite fallibilism, combined with a high faith in the reality of knowledge, and an intense desire to find things out, all my philosophy has always seemed to me to grow. . . .

Peirce: CP 1 Contents CONTENTS

Introduction

Paragraph

Numbers

Preface 1

Peirce: CP 1 Contents Book 1 Chapter 1 p xiii BOOK I. GENERAL HISTORICAL ORIENTATION

CHAP. 1. LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

1. Nominalism 15

2. Conceptualism 27

3. The Spirit of Scholasticism 28

4. Kant and his Refutation of Idealism 35

5. Hegelism 40

Peirce: CP 1 Contents Book 1 Chapter 2 p xiii CHAP. 2. LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE 1. The Scientific Attitude 43

2. The Scientific Imagination 46

3. Science and Morality 49

4. Mathematics 52

5. Science as a Guide to Conduct 55

6. Morality and Sham Reasoning 56

7. The Method of Authority 59

8. Science and Continuity 61

9. The Analytic Method 63

10. Kinds of Reasoning 65

11. The Study of the Useless 75

12. Il Lume Naturale 80

13. Generalization and Abstraction 82

14. The Evaluation of Exactitude 85

15. Science and Extraordinary Phenomena 87

16. Reasoning from Samples 92

17. The Method of Residual Phenomena 98

18. Observation 99

19. Evolution 103

20. Some A Priori Dicta 110

21. The Paucity of Scientific Knowledge 116

22. The Uncertainty of Scientific Results 120

23. Economy of Research 122

Peirce: CP 1 Contents Book 1 Chapter 3 p xiv CHAP. 3. NOTES ON SCIENTIFIC PHILOSOPHY 1. Laboratory and Seminary Philosophies 126

2. Axioms 130

3. The Observational Part of Philosophy 133

4. The First Rule of Reason 135

5. Fallibilism, Continuity, and Evolution 141

Peirce: CP 1 Contents Book 2 Proem p xiv BOOK II. THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES

Proem: The Architectonic Character of Philosophy 176

Peirce: CP 1 Contents Book 2 Chapter 1 p xiv CHAP. 1. AN OUTLINE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 180

Peirce: CP 1 Contents Book 2 Chapter 2 p xiv CHAP. 2. A DETAILED CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 1. Natural Classes 203

2. Natural Classifications 224

3. The Essence of Science 232

4. The Divisions of Science 238

5. The Divisions of Philosophy 273

6. The Divisions of Mathematics 283

Peirce: CP 1 Contents Book 3 Chapter 1 p xiv BOOK III. PHENOMENOLOGY

CHAP. 1. INTRODUCTION

1. The Phaneron 284

2. Valencies 288

3. Monads, Dyads, and Triads 293

4. Indecomposable Elements 294

Peirce: CP 1 Contents Book 3 Chapter 2 p xiv CHAP. 2. THE CATEGORIES IN DETAIL

A. Firstness

1. The Source of the Categories 300

2. The Manifestation of Firstness 302

3. The Monad 303

4. Qualities of Feeling 304

5. Feeling as Independent of Mind and Change 305

6. A Definition of Feeling 306

7. The Similarity of Feelings of Different Sensory Modes 312

8. Presentments as Signs 313

9. The Communicability of Feelings 314

B. Secondness

1. Feeling and Struggle 322

2. Action and Perception 324

3. The Varieties of Secondness 325

4. The Dyad 326

5. Polar Distinctions and Volition 330

6. Ego and Non-Ego 332

7. Shock and the Sense of Change 335

C. Thirdness

1. Examples of Thirdness 337

2. Representation and Generality 338

3. The Reality of Thirdness 343

4. Protoplasm and the Categories 350

5. The Interdependence of the Categories 353

Peirce: CP 1 Contents Book 3 Chapter 3 p xv CHAP. 3. A GUESS AT THE RIDDLE Plan of the Work 354

1. Trichotomy 355

3. The Triad in Metaphysics 373

4. The Triad in Psychology 374

5. The Triad in Physiology 385

6. The Triad in Biological Development 395

7. The Triad in Physics 400

Peirce: CP 1 Contents Book 3 Chapter 4 p xv CHAP. 4. THE LOGIC OF MATHEMATICS; AN ATTEMPT TO DEVELOP MY CATEGORIES FROM WITHIN

1. The Three Categories 417

2. Quality 422

3. Fact 427

4. Dyads 441

5. Triads 471

Peirce: CP 1 Contents Book 3 Chapter 5 p xvi CHAP. 5. DEGENERATE CASES 1. Kinds of Secondness 521

2. The Firstness of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness 530

Peirce: CP 1 Contents Book 3 Chapter 6 p xvi CHAP. 6. ON A NEW LIST OF CATEGORIES 1. Original Statement 545

2. Notes on the Preceding 560

Peirce: CP 1 Contents Book 3 Chapter 7 p xvi CHAP. 7. TRIADOMANY 568

Peirce: CP 1 Contents Book 4 Chapter 1 p xvi BOOK IV. THE NORMATIVE SCIENCES

CHAP. 1. INTRODUCTION 573

Peirce: CP 1 Contents Book 4 Chapter 2 p xvi CHAP. 2. ULTIMATE GOODS 575

Peirce: CP 1 Contents Book 4 Chapter 3 p xvi CHAP. 3. AN ATTEMPTED CLASSIFICATION OF ENDS 585

Peirce: CP 1 Contents Book 4 Chapter 4 p xvi CHAP. 4. IDEALS OF CONDUCT 591

Peirce: CP 1 Contents Book 4 Chapter 5 p xvi CHAP. 5. VITALLY IMPORTANT TOPICS

2. Practical Concerns and the Wisdom of Sentiment 649

3. Vitally Important Truths 661

Peirce: CP 1.15 Cross-Ref: BOOK I

PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHYP

LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

1. NOMINALISM 1

15. Very early in my studies of logic, before I had really been devoting myself to it more than four or five years, it became quite manifest to me that this science was in a bad condition, entirely unworthy of the general state of intellectual development of our age; and in consequence of this, every other branch of philosophy except ethics -- for it was already clear that psychology was a special science and no part of philosophy -- was in a similar disgraceful state. About that time -- say the date of Mansel's Prolegomena Logica2 -- Logic touched bottom. There was no room for it to become more degraded. It had been

sinking steadily, and relatively to the advance of physical science, by no means slowly from the time of the revival of learning -- say from the date of the last fall of Constantinople.3 One important addition to the subject had been made early in the eighteenth century, the Doctrine of Chances. But this had not come from the professed logicians, who knew nothing about it. Whewell, it is true, had been doing some fine work; but it was not of a fundamental character. De Morgan and Boole had laid the foundations for modern exact logic, but they can hardly be said to have begun the erection of the edifice itself. Under these circumstances, I naturally opened the dusty folios of the scholastic doctors. Thought generally was, of course, in a somewhat low condition under the Plantagenets. You can appraise it very well by the impression that Dante, Chaucer, Marco Polo, Froissart, and the great cathedrals make upon us. But [their] logic, relatively to the general condition of thought, was marvellously exact and critical. They can tell us nothing concerning methods of reasoning since their own reasoning was puerile; but their analyses of thought and their discussions of all those questions of logic that almost trench upon metaphysics are very instructive as well as very good discipline in that subtle kind of thinking that is required in logic.

Peirce: CP 1.16 Cross-Ref: 16. In the days of which I am speaking, the age of Robert of Lincoln, Roger Bacon, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus, the question of nominalism and realism was regarded as definitively and conclusively settled in favor of realism. You know what the question was. It was whether laws and general types are figments of the mind or are real. If this be understood to mean whether there really are any laws and types, it is strictly speaking a question of metaphysics and not of logic. But as a first step toward its solution, it is proper to ask whether, granting that our common-sense beliefs are true, the analysis of the meaning of those beliefs shows that, according to those beliefs, laws and types are objective or subjective. This is a question of logic rather than of metaphysics -- and as soon as this is answered the reply to the other question immediately follows after.

Peirce: CP 1.17 Cross-Ref: 17. Notwithstanding a great outburst of nominalism in the fourteenth century which was connected with politics, the nominalists being generally opposed to the excessive powers of the pope and in favor of civil government, a connection that lent to the philosophical doctrine a factitious following, the Scotists, who were realists, were in most places the predominant party, and retained possession of the universities. At the revival of learning they stubbornly opposed the new studies; and thus the word Duns, the proper name of their master, came to mean an adversary of learning. The word originally further implied that the person so called was a master of subtle thought with which the humanists were unable to cope. But in another generation the disputations by which that power of thought was kept in training had lost their liveliness; and the consequence was that Scotism died out when the strong Scotists died. It was a mere change of fashion.

Peirce: CP 1.18 Cross-Ref: 18. The humanists were weak thinkers. Some of them no doubt might have

been trained to be strong thinkers; but they had no severe training in thought. All their energies went to writing a classical language and an artistic style of expression. They went to the ancients for their philosophy; and mostly took up the three easiest of the ancient sects of philosophy, Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Scepticism. Epicureanism was a doctrine extremely like that of John Stuart Mill. The Epicureans alone of the later ancient schools believed in inductive reasoning, which they grounded upon the uniformity of nature, although they made the uniformity of nature to consist in somewhat different characters from those Stuart Mill emphasizes. Like Mill, the Epicureans were extreme nominalists. The Stoics advocated the flattest materialism, which nobody any longer has any need of doing since the new invention of Monism enables a man to be perfectly materialist in substance, and as idealistic as he likes in words. Of course the Stoics could not but be nominalists. They took no stock in inductive reasoning. They held it to be a transparent fallacy. The Sceptics of the Renaissance were something like the agnostics of the generation now passing away, except that they went much further. Our agnostics contented themselves with declaring everything beyond ordinary generalizations of experience to be unknowable, while the Sceptics did not think any scientific knowledge of any description to be possible. If you turn over the pages, for example, of Cornelius Agrippa's book De [incertitudine et] vanitate scientiarum [et artium] [1531], you will find he takes up every science in succession, arithmetic, geometry, mechanics, optics, and after examination pronounces each to be altogether beyond the power of the human mind. Of course, therefore, as far as they believed in anything at all, the Sceptics were nominalists.

Peirce: CP 1.19 Cross-Ref: 19. In short, there was a tidal wave of nominalism. Descartes was a nominalist. Locke and all his following, Berkeley, Hartley, Hume, and even Reid, were nominalists. Leibniz was an extreme nominalist, and Rmusat [C. F. M.?] who has lately made an attempt to repair the edifice of Leibnizian monadology, does so by cutting away every part which leans at all toward realism. Kant was a nominalist; although his philosophy would have been rendered compacter, more consistent, and stronger if its author had taken up realism, as he certainly would have done if he had read Scotus. Hegel was a nominalist of realistic yearnings. I might continue the list much further. Thus, in one word, all modern philosophy of every sect has been nominalistic.

Peirce: CP 1.20 Cross-Ref: 20. In a long notice of Frazer's Berkeley, in the North American Review for October, 1871,1 I declared for realism. I have since very carefully and thoroughly revised my philosophical opinions more than half a dozen times, and have modified them more or less on most topics; but I have never been able to think differently on that question of nominalism and realism. In that paper I acknowledged that the tendency of science has been toward nominalism; but the late Dr. Francis Ellingwood Abbot in the very remarkable introduction to his book entitled "Scientific Theism" [1885], showed on the contrary, quite conclusively, that science has always been at heart realistic, and always must be so; and upon

comparing his writings with mine, it is easily seen that these features of nominalism which I pointed out in science are merely superficial and transient.

Peirce: CP 1.21 Cross-Ref: 21. The heart of the dispute lies in this. The modern philosophers -- one and all, unless Schelling be an exception -- recognize but one mode of being, the being of an individual thing or fact, the being which consists in the object's crowding out a place for itself in the universe, so to speak, and reacting by brute force of fact, against all other things. I call that existence.

Peirce: CP 1.22 Cross-Ref: 22. Aristotle, on the other hand, whose system, like all the greatest systems, was evolutionary, recognized besides an embryonic kind of being, like the being of a tree in its seed, or like the being of a future contingent event, depending on how a man shall decide to act. In a few passages Aristotle seems to have a dim aperue of a third mode of being in the entelechy. The embryonic being for Aristotle was the being he called matter, which is alike in all things, and which in the course of its development took on form. Form is an element having a different mode of being. The whole philosophy of the scholastic doctors is an attempt to mould this doctrine of Aristotle into harmony with christian truth. This harmony the different doctors attempted to bring about in different ways. But all the realists agree in reversing the order of Aristotle's evolution by making the form come first, and the individuation of that form come later. Thus, they too recognized two modes of being; but they were not the two modes of being of Aristotle.

Peirce: CP 1.23 Cross-Ref: 23. My view is that there are three modes of being. I hold that we can directly observe them in elements of whatever is at any time before the mind in any way. They are the being of positive qualitative possibility, the being of actual fact, and the being of law that will govern facts in the future.

Peirce: CP 1.24 Cross-Ref: 24. Let us begin with considering actuality, and try to make out just what it consists in. If I ask you what the actuality of an event consists in, you will tell me that it consists in its happening then and there. The specifications then and there involve all its relations to other existents. The actuality of the event seems to lie in its relations to the universe of existents. A court may issue injunctions and judgments against me and I not care a snap of my finger for them. I may think them idle vapor. But when I feel the sheriff's hand on my shoulder, I shall begin to have a sense of actuality. Actuality is something brute. There is no reason in it. I instance putting your shoulder against a door and trying to force it open against an unseen, silent, and unknown resistance. We have a two-sided consciousness of effort and resistance, which seems to me to come tolerably near to a pure sense of actuality. On the whole, I think we have here a mode of being of one thing which consists in how a second object is. I call that Secondness.

Peirce: CP 1.25 Cross-Ref: 25. Besides this, there are two modes of being that I call Firstness and Thirdness. Firstness is the mode of being which consists in its subject's being positively such as it is regardless of aught else. That can only be a possibility. For as long as things do not act upon one another there is no sense or meaning in saying that they have any being, unless it be that they are such in themselves that they may perhaps come into relation with others. The mode of being a redness, before anything in the universe was yet red, was nevertheless a positive qualitative possibility. And redness in itself, even if it be embodied, is something positive and sui generis. That I call Firstness. We naturally attribute Firstness to outward objects, that is we suppose they have capacities in themselves which may or may not be already actualized, which may or may not ever be actualized, although we can know nothing of such possibilities [except] so far as they are actualized.

Peirce: CP 1.26 Cross-Ref: 26. Now for Thirdness. Five minutes of our waking life will hardly pass without our making some kind of prediction; and in the majority of cases these predictions are fulfilled in the event. Yet a prediction is essentially of a general nature, and cannot ever be completely fulfilled. To say that a prediction has a decided tendency to be fulfilled, is to say that the future events are in a measure really governed by a law. If a pair of dice turns up sixes five times running, that is a mere uniformity. The dice might happen fortuitously to turn up sixes a thousand times running. But that would not afford the slightest security for a prediction that they would turn up sixes the next time. If the prediction has a tendency to be fulfilled, it must be that future events have a tendency to conform to a general rule. "Oh," but say the nominalists, "this general rule is nothing but a mere word or couple of words!" I reply, "Nobody ever dreamed of denying that what is general is of the nature of a general sign; but the question is whether future events will conform to it or not. If they will, your adjective 'mere' seems to be ill-placed." A rule to which future events have a tendency to conform is ipso facto an important thing, an important element in the happening of those events. This mode of being which consists, mind my word if you please, the mode of being which consists in the fact that future facts of Secondness will take on a determinate general character, I call a Thirdness.

Peirce: CP 1.27 Cross-Ref: 2. CONCEPTUALISM 1

27. Many philosophers call their variety of nominalism, "conceptualism"; but it is essentially the same thing; and their not seeing that it is so is but another example of that loose and slapdash style of thinking that has made it possible for them to remain nominalists. Their calling their "conceptualism" a middle term between realism and nominalism is itself an example in the very matter to which

nominalism relates. For while the question between nominalism and realism is, in its nature, susceptible of but two answers: yes and no, they make an idle and irrelevant point which had been thoroughly considered by all the great realists; and instead of drawing a valid distinction, as they suppose, only repeat the very same confusion of thought which made them nominalists. The question was whether all properties, laws of nature, and predicates of more than an actually existent subject are, without exception, mere figments or not.P1 The conceptualists seek to wedge in a third position conflicting with the principle of excluded middle. They say, "Those universals are real, indeed; but they are only real thoughts." So much may be said of the philosopher's stone. To give that answer constitutes a man a nominalist. Are the laws of nature, and that property of gold by which it will yield the purple of Cassius, no more real than the philosopher's stone? No, the conceptualists admit that there is a difference; but they say that the laws of nature and the properties of chemical species are results of thinking. The great realists had brought out all the truth there is in that much more distinctly long before modern conceptualism appeared in the world. They showed that the general is not capable of full actualization in the world of action and reaction but is of the nature of what is thought, but that our thinking only apprehends and does not create thought, and that that thought may and does as much govern outward things as it does our thinking. But those realists did not fall into any confusion between the real fact of having a dream and the illusory object dreamed. The conceptualist doctrine is an undisputed truism about thinking, while the question between nominalists and realists relates to thoughts, that is, to the objects which thinking enables us to know.

Peirce: CP 1.28 Cross-Ref: 3. THE SPIRIT OF SCHOLASTICISM 1

28. . . . [The] history of logic is not altogether without an interest as a branch of history. For so far as the logic of an age adequately represents the methods of thought of that age, its history is a history of the human mind in its most essential relation -- that is to say with reference to its power of investigating truth. But the chief value of the study of historical philosophy is that it disciplines the mind to regard philosophy with a cold and scientific eye and not with passion as though philosophers were contestants.

Peirce: CP 1.29 Cross-Ref: 29. British logic is a subject of some particular interest inasmuch as some peculiar lines of thought have always been predominant in those islands, giving their logicians a certain family resemblance, which already begins to appear in very early times. The most striking characteristic of British thinkers is their nominalistic tendency. This has always been and is now very marked. So much so that in England and in England alone are there many thinkers more distinguished at this day as being nominalistic than as holding any other doctrines. William

Ockham or Oakum, an Englishman, was beyond question the greatest nominalist that ever lived; while Duns Scotus, another British name, it is equally certain is the subtilest advocate of the opposite opinion. These two men, Duns Scotus and William Ockham, are decidedly the greatest speculative minds of the middle ages, as well as two of the profoundest metaphysicians that ever lived. Another circumstance which makes [the] logic of the British Islands interesting is that there more than elsewhere have the studies of the logic of the natural sciences been made. Already we find some evidences of English thought running in that direction, when we meet with that singular phenomenon Roger Bacon -- a man who was scientific before science began. At the first dawn of the age [of] science, Francis Bacon wrote that professedly and really logical treatise, the Novum Organum, a work the celebrity of which perhaps exceeds its real merits. In our own day, the writings of Whewell, Mill, and Herschel afford some of the finest accounts of the methods of thought in science. Another direction in which logical thought has gone farther in England than elsewhere is in mathematico-formal logic -- the chief writers on which are Boole, DeMorgan, and the Scotch Sir William Hamilton -- for although Hamilton was so bitter against mathematics, that his own doctrine of the quantified predicate is essentially mathematical is beyond intelligent dispute. This fondness for the formal part of logic had already appeared in the middle ages, when the nominalistic school of Ockham -- the most extremely scholastic of the scholastics -- and next to them the school of Scotus carried to the utmost the doctrines of the Parva Logicalia which were the contribution of those ages to this branch of the science. And those Parva Logicalia may themselves have had an English origin, for the earliest known writer upon the subject -- unless the Synopsis {Aristotelous Organou} be attributed to Psellus -- was an Englishman, William Shirwood. . . .1

Peirce: CP 1.30 Cross-Ref: 30. The most striking characteristic of medieval thought is the importance attributed to authority. It was held that authority and reason were two cordinate methods of arriving at truth, and far from holding that authority was secondary to reason, the scholastics were much more apt to place it quite above reason. When Berengarius in his dispute with Lanfranc remarked that the whole of an affirmation does not stand after a part is subverted, his adversary replied: "The sacred authorities being relinquished, you take refuge in dialectic, and when I am to hear and to answer concerning the ministry of the Faith, I prefer to hear and to answer the sacred authorities which are supposed to relate to the subject rather than dialectical reasons." To this Berengarius replied that St. Augustine in his book De doctrina christiana says that what he said concerning an affirmation is bound up indissolubly with that very eternity of truth which is God. But added: "Maximi plane cordis est, per omnia ad dialecticum confugere, quia confugere ad eam ad rationem est confugere, quo qui non confugit, cum secundum rationem sit factus ad imaginem Dei, suum honorem reliquit, nec potest renovari de die in diem ad imaginem Dei."2 Next to sacred authorities -- the Bible, the church and the fathers -- that of Aristotle of course ranked the highest. It could be denied, but the presumption was immense against his being wrong on any particular point.

Peirce: CP 1.31 Cross-Ref: 31. Such a weight being attached to authority -- a weight which would be excessive were not the human mind at that time in so uneducated a state that it could not do better than follow masters, since it was totally incompetent to solve metaphysical problems for itself -- it follows naturally that originality of thought was not greatly admired, but that on the contrary the admirable mind was his who succeeded in interpreting consistently the dicta of Aristotle, Porphyry, and Boethius. Vanity, therefore, the vanity of cleverness, was a vice from which the schoolmen were remarkably free. They were minute and thorough in their knowledge of such authorities as they had, and they were equally minute and thorough in their treatment of every question which came up.

Peirce: CP 1.32 Cross-Ref: 32. All these characters remind us less of the philosophers of our day than of the men of science. I do not hesitate to say that scientific men now think much more of authority than do metaphysicians; for in science a question is not regarded as settled or its solution as certain until all intelligent and informed doubt has ceased and all competent persons have come to a catholic agreement, whereas fifty metaphysicians, each holding opinions that no one of the other forty-nine can admit, will nevertheless generally regard their fifty opposite opinions as more certain than that the sun will rise tomorrow. This is to have what seems an absurd disregard for others' opinions. The man of science attaches positive value to the opinion of every man as competent as himself, so that he cannot but have a doubt of a conclusion which he would adopt were it not that a competent man opposes it; but on the other hand, he will regard a sufficient divergence from the convictions of the great body of scientific men as tending of itself to argue incompetence, and he will generally attach little weight to the opinions of men who have long been dead and were ignorant of much that has been since discovered which bears upon the question in hand. The schoolmen, however, attached the greatest authority to men long since dead, and there they were right, for in the dark ages it was not true that the later state of human knowledge was the most perfect, but on the contrary. I think it may be said then that the schoolmen did not attach too much weight to authority, although they attached much more to it than we ought to do or than ought or could be attached to it in any age in which science is pursuing a successful and onward course -- and of course infinitely more than is attached to it by those intellectual nomads, the modern metaphysicians, including the positivists.

Peirce: CP 1.33 Cross-Ref: 33. In the slight importance they attached to a brilliant theory, the schoolmen also resembled modern scientific men, who cannot be comprehended in this respect at all by men not scientific. The followers of Herbert Spencer, for example, cannot comprehend why scientific men place Darwin so infinitely above Spencer, since the theories of the latter are so much grander and more comprehensive. They cannot understand that it is not the sublimity of Darwin's theories which makes him admired by men of science, but that it is rather his minute, systematic, extensive, strict, scientific researches which have given his

theories a more favorable reception -- theories which in themselves would barely command scientific respect. And this misunderstanding belongs to all those metaphysicians who fancy themselves men of science on account of their metaphysics. This same scientific spirit has been equally misunderstood as it is found in the schoolmen. They have been above all things found fault with because they do not write a literary style and do not "study in a literary spirit." The men who make this objection cannot possibly comprehend the real merits of modern science. If the words quidditas, entitas, and haecceitas are to excite our disgust, what shall we say of the Latin of the botanists, and the style of any technically scientific work? As for that phrase "studying in a literary spirit" it is impossible to express how nauseating it is to any scientific man, yes even to the scientific linguist. But above all things it is the searching thoroughness of the schoolmen which affiliates them with men of science and separates them, world-wide, from modern so-called philosophers. The thoroughness I allude to consists in this, that in adopting any theory, they go about everywhere, they devote their whole energies and lives in putting it to tests bona fide -- not such as shall merely add a new spangle to the glitter of their proofs but such as shall really go toward satisfying their restless insatiable impulse to put their opinions to the test. Having a theory, they must apply it to every subject and to every branch of every subject to see whether it produces a result in accordance with the only criteria they were able to apply -- the truth of the Catholic faith and the teaching of the Prince of Philosophers.

Peirce: CP 1.34 Cross-Ref: 34. Mr. George Henry Lewes in his work on Aristotle 1 seems to me to have come pretty near to stating the true cause of the success of modern science when he has said that it was verification. I should express it in this way: modern students of science have been successful because they have spent their lives not in their libraries and museums but in their laboratories and in the field; and while in their laboratories and in the field they have been not gazing on nature with a vacant eye, that is, in passive perception unassisted by thought, but have been observing -- that is, perceiving by the aid of analysis -- and testing suggestions of theories. The cause of their success has been that the motive which has carried them to the laboratory and the field has been a craving to know how things really were, and an interest in finding out whether or not general propositions actually held good -- which has overbalanced all prejudice, all vanity, and all passion. Now it is plainly not an essential part of this method in general that the tests were made by the observation of natural objects. For the immense progress which modern mathematics has made is also to be explained by the same intense interest in testing general propositions by particular cases -- only the tests were applied by means of particular demonstrations. This is observation, still, for as the great mathematician Gauss has declared -- algebra is a science of the eye,2 only it is observation of artificial objects and of a highly recondite character. Now this same unwearied interest in testing general propositions is what produced those long rows of folios of the schoolmen, and if the test which they employed is of only limited validity so that they could not unhampered go on indefinitely to further discoveries, yet the spirit, which is the most essential thing -- the motive,

was nearly the same. And how different this spirit is from that of the major part, though not all, of modern philosophers -- even of those who have called themselves empirical, no man who is actuated by it can fail to perceive.

Peirce: CP 1.35 Cross-Ref: 4. KANT AND HIS REFUTATION OF IDEALISM 1

35. Kant's whole philosophy turns upon his logic. He gives the name of logic to the greater part of his Critic of the Pure Reason, and it is a result of the great fault of his logical theory that he does not extend that name to the whole work. This greatest fault was at the same [time] the greatest merit of his doctrine: it lay in his sharp discrimination of the intuitive and the discursive processes of the mind. The distinction itself is not only familiar to everybody but it had long played a part in philosophy. Nevertheless, it is on such obvious distinctions that the greater systems have been founded, and [Kant] saw far more clearly than any predecessor had done the whole philosophical import of this distinction. This was what emancipated him from Leibnizianism, and at the same time turned him against sensationalism. It was also what enabled him to see that no general description of existence is possible, which is perhaps the most valuable proposition that the Critic contains. But he drew too hard a line between the operations of observation and of ratiocination. He allows himself to fall into the habit of thinking that the latter only begins after the former is complete; and wholly fails to see that even the simplest syllogistic conclusion can only be drawn by observing the relations of the terms in the premisses and conclusion. His doctrine of the schemata can only have been an afterthought, an addition to his system after it was substantially complete. For if the schemata had been considered early enough, they would have overgrown his whole work.

Peirce: CP 1.36 Cross-Ref: 36. Kant's refutation of idealism in the second edition of the Critic of the Pure Reason has been often held to be inconsistent with his main position or even to be knowingly sophistical. It appears to me to be one of the numerous passages in that work which betray an elaborated and vigorous analysis, marred in the exposition by the attempt to state the argument more abstractly and demonstratively than the thought would warrant.

Peirce: CP 1.36 Cross-Ref: In "Note 1," Kant says that his argument beats idealism at its own game. How is that? The idealist says that all that we know immediately, that is, otherwise than inferentially, is what is present in the mind; and things out of the mind are not so present. The whole idealist position turns upon this conception of the present.

Peirce: CP 1.37 Cross-Ref: 37. The idealistic argument turns upon the assumption that certain things

are absolutely "present," namely what we have in mind at the moment, and that nothing else can be immediately, that is, otherwise than inferentially known. When this is once granted, the idealist has no difficulty in showing that that external existence which we cannot know immediately we cannot know, at all. Some of the arguments used for this purpose are of little value, because they only go to show that our knowledge of an external world is fallible; now there is a world of difference between fallible knowledge and no knowledge. However, I think it would have to be admitted as a matter of logic that if we have no immediate perception of a non-ego, we can have no reason to admit the supposition of an existence so contrary to all experience as that would in that case be.

Peirce: CP 1.38 Cross-Ref: 38. But what evidence is there that we can immediately know only what is "present" to the mind? The idealists generally treat this as self-evident; but, as Clifford jestingly says, "it is evident" is a phrase which only means "we do not know how to prove." The proposition that we can immediately perceive only what is present seems to me parallel to that other vulgar prejudice that "a thing cannot act where it is not." An opinion which can only defend itself by such a sounding phrase is pretty sure to be wrong. That a thing cannot act where it is not is plainly an induction from ordinary experience, which shows no forces except such as act through the resistance of materials, with the exception of gravity which, owing to its being the same for all bodies, does not appear in ordinary experience like a force. But further experience shows that attractions and repulsions are the universal types of forces. A thing may be said to be wherever it acts; but the notion that a particle is absolutely present in one part of space and absolutely absent from all the rest of space is devoid of all foundation. In like manner, the idea that we can immediately perceive only what is present seems to be founded on our ordinary experience that we cannot recall and reexamine the events of yesterday nor know otherwise than by inference what is to happen tomorrow. Obviously, then, the first move toward beating idealism at its own game is to remark that we apprehend our own ideas only as flowing in time, and since neither the future nor the past, however near they may be, is present, there is as much difficulty in conceiving our perception of what passes within us as in conceiving external perception. If so, replies the idealist, instead of giving up idealism we must go still further to nihilism. Kant does not notice this retort; but it is clear from his footnote that he would have said: Not so; for it is impossible we should so much as think we think in time unless we do think in time; or rather, dismissing blind impossibility, the mere imagination of time is a clear perception of the past. Hamilton 1 stupidly objects to Reid's phrase "immediate memory"; but an immediate, intuitive consciousness of time clearly exists wherever time exists. But once grant immediate knowledge in time, and what becomes of the idealist theory that we immediately know only the present? For the present can contain no time.

Peirce: CP 1.39 Cross-Ref: 39. But Kant does not pursue this line of thought along the straight road to

its natural result; because he is a sort of idealist himself. Namely, though not idealistic as to the substance of things, he is partially so in regard to their accidents. Accordingly, he introduces his distinction of the variable and the persistent (beharrlich), and seeks to show that the only way we can apprehend our own flow of ideas, binding them together as a connected flow, is by attaching them to an immediately perceived persistent externality. He refuses to inquire how that immediate external consciousness is possible, though such an inquiry might have probed the foundations of his system.

Peirce: CP 1.40 Cross-Ref: 5. HEGELISM 2

40. The critical logicians have been much affiliated to the theological seminaries. About the thinking that goes on in laboratories they have known nothing. Now the seminarists and religionists generally have at all times and places set their faces against the idea of continuous growth. That disposition of intellect is the most catholic element of religion. Religious truth having been once defined is never to be altered in the most minute particular; and theology being held as queen of the sciences, the religionists have bitterly fought by fire and tortures all great advances in the true sciences; and if there be no true continuous growth in men's ideas where else in the world should it be looked for? Thence, we find this folk setting up hard lines of demarcation, or great gulfs, contrary to all observation, between good men and bad, between the wise and foolish, between the spirit and the flesh, between all the different kinds of objects, between one quantity and the next. So shut up are they in this conception of the world that when the seminarist Hegel discovered that the universe is everywhere permeated with continuous growth (for that, and nothing else, is the "Secret of Hegel") it was supposed to be an entirely new idea, a century and a half after the differential calculus had been in working order.

Peirce: CP 1.41 Cross-Ref: 41. Hegel, while regarding scientific men with disdain, has for his chief topic the importance of continuity, which was the very idea the mathematicians and physicists had been chiefly engaged in following out for three centuries. This made Hegel's work less correct and excellent in itself than it might have been; and at the same time hid its true mode of affinity with the scientific thought into which the life of the race had been chiefly laid up. It was a misfortune for Hegelism, a misfortune for "philosophy," and a misfortune (in lesser degree) for science.

Peirce: CP 1.42 Cross-Ref: 42. My philosophy resuscitates Hegel, though in a strange costume.

Peirce: CP 1.43 Cross-Ref: CHAPTER 2

LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE1

1. THE SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDE

43. If we endeavor to form our conceptions upon history and life, we remark three classes of men. The first consists of those for whom the chief thing is the qualities of feelings. These men create art. The second consists of the practical men, who carry on the business of the world. They respect nothing but power, and respect power only so far as it [is] exercized. The third class consists of men to whom nothing seems great but reason. If force interests them, it is not in its exertion, but in that it has a reason and a law. For men of the first class, nature is a picture; for men of the second class, it is an opportunity; for men of the third class, it is a cosmos, so admirable, that to penetrate to its ways seems to them the only thing that makes life worth living. These are the men whom we see possessed by a passion to learn, just as other men have a passion to teach and to disseminate their influence. If they do not give themselves over completely to their passion to learn, it is because they exercise self-control. Those are the natural scientific men; and they are the only men that have any real success in scientific research.

Peirce: CP 1.44 Cross-Ref: 44. If we are to define science, not in the sense of stuffing it into an artificial pigeon-hole where it may be found again by some insignificant mark, but in the sense of characterizing it as a living historic entity, we must conceive it as that about which such men as I have described busy themselves. As such, it does not consist so much in knowing, nor even in "organized knowledge," as it does in diligent inquiry into truth for truth's sake, without any sort of axe to grind, nor for the sake of the delight of contemplating it, but from an impulse to penetrate into the reason of things. This is the sense in which this book is entitled a History of Science. Science and philosophy seem to have been changed in their cradles. For it is not knowing, but the love of learning, that characterizes the scientific man; while the "philosopher" is a man with a system which he thinks embodies all that is best worth knowing. If a man burns to learn and sets himself to comparing his ideas with experimental results in order that he may correct those ideas, every scientific man will recognize him as a brother, no matter how small his knowledge may be.

Peirce: CP 1.45 Cross-Ref: 45. But if a man occupies himself with investigating the truth of some question for some ulterior purpose, such as to make money, or to amend his life,

or to benefit his fellows, he may be ever so much better than a scientific man, if you will -- to discuss that would be aside from the question -- but he is not a scientific man. For example, there are numbers of chemists who occupy themselves exclusively with the study of dyestuffs. They discover facts that are useful to scientific chemistry; but they do not rank as genuine scientific men. The genuine scientific chemist cares just as much to learn about erbium -- the extreme rarity of which renders it commercially unimportant -- as he does about iron. He is more eager to learn about erbium if the knowledge of it would do more to complete his conception of the Periodic Law, which expresses the mutual relations of the elements.

Peirce: CP 1.46 Cross-Ref: 2. THE SCIENTIFIC IMAGINATION

46. When a man desires ardently to know the truth, his first effort will be to imagine what that truth can be. He cannot prosecute his pursuit long without finding that imagination unbridled is sure to carry him off the track. Yet nevertheless, it remains true that there is, after all, nothing but imagination that can ever supply him an inkling of the truth. He can stare stupidly at phenomena; but in the absence of imagination they will not connect themselves together in any rational way. Just as for Peter Bell a cowslip was nothing but a cowslip, so for thousands of men a falling apple was nothing but a falling apple; and to compare it to the moon would by them be deemed "fanciful."

Peirce: CP 1.47 Cross-Ref: 47. It is not too much to say that next after the passion to learn there is no quality so indispensable to the successful prosecution of science as imagination. Find me a people whose early medicine is not mixed up with magic and incantations, and I will find you a people devoid of all scientific ability. There is no magic in the medical Papyrus Ebers. The stolid Egyptian saw nothing in disease but derangement of the affected organ. There never was any true Egyptian science.

Peirce: CP 1.48 Cross-Ref: 48. There are, no doubt, kinds of imagination of no value in science, mere artistic imagination, mere dreaming of opportunities for gain. The scientific imagination dreams of explanations and laws.

Peirce: CP 1.49 Cross-Ref: 3. SCIENCE AND MORALITY

49. A scientific man must be single-minded and sincere with himself. Otherwise, his love of truth will melt away, at once. He can, therefore, hardly be otherwise than an honest, fair-minded man. True, a few naturalists have been accused of purloining specimens; and some men have been far from judicial in advocating their theories. Both of these faults must be exceedingly deleterious to their scientific ability. But on the whole, scientific men have been the best of men. It is quite natural, therefore, that a young man who might develope into a scientific man should be a well-conducted person.

Peirce: CP 1.50 Cross-Ref: 50. Yet in more ways than one an exaggerated regard for morality is unfavorable to scientific progress. I shall present only one of those ways. It will no doubt shock some persons that I should speak of morality as involving an element which can become bad. To them good conduct and moral conduct are one and the same -- and they will accuse me of hostility to morality. I regard morality as highly necessary; but it is a means to good life, not necessarily coextensive with good conduct. Morality consists in the folklore of right conduct. A man is brought up to think he ought to behave in certain ways. If he behaves otherwise, he is uncomfortable. His conscience pricks him. That system of morals is the traditional wisdom of ages of experience. If a man cuts loose from it, he will become the victim of his passions. It is not safe for him even to reason about it, except in a purely speculative way. Hence, morality is essentially conservative. Good morals and good manners are identical, except that tradition attaches less importance to the latter. The gentleman is imbued with conservatism. This conservatism is a habit, and it is the law of habit that it tends to spread and extend itself over more and more of the life. In this way, conservatism about morals leads to conservatism about manners and finally conservatism about opinions of a speculative kind. Besides, to distinguish between speculative and practical opinions is the mark of the most cultivated intellects. Go down below this level and you come across reformers and rationalists at every turn -- people who propose to remodel the ten commandments on modern science. Hence it is that morality leads to a conservatism which any new view, or even any free inquiry, no matter how purely speculative, shocks. The whole moral weight of such a community will be cast against science. To inquire into nature is for a Turk very unbecoming to a good Moslem; just as the family of Tycho Brahe regarded his pursuit of astronomy as unbecoming to a nobleman. (See Thomas Nash in Pierce Pennilesse for the character of a Danish nobleman.)

Peirce: CP 1.51 Cross-Ref: 51. This tendency is necessarily greatly exaggerated in a country when the